Watched school in the Valencian Country

The school year has begun in the Valencian Country with a novelty that should put us all on alert. The PP and Vox government of the Valencian Generalitat has approved the reform of the law they call "of fiscal, administrative and financial management, and organization measures," a dull statement behind which lies the anti-democratic measure of implementing a system of surveillance and ideological control—including denunciations—in the public schools and educational centers of the Valencian Country.The Consell presided over by Juan Francisco Pérez Llorca (Mazón's substitute, who nowadays lives splendidly occupying a deputy's seat, enriched by a salary as president of a parliamentary commission that never meets) has legally entrusted the Educational Inspection with a singular task: to "ensure ideological neutrality" within classrooms. That is to say: a strict supervision of teaching activities, curricular materials, and events held in schools, to avoid any form of "indoctrination." The reform also includes the creation of channels or anonymous reporting mailboxes. Just as you read it: parents who consider it appropriate will be able to report directly, and without giving a name or face, those teachers and professors who, according to them, have infringed upon "ideological neutrality," committed "indoctrination," or broken something else that the PP and Vox consider fundamental: "linguistic freedom." That is to say, those who have the pretension of teaching classes, or conducting activities or academic tests, in Catalan. Or in Valencian, as you wish. Let us remember that we are talking about the same government officials who have also produced regulations to exclude Catalan and Balearic writers from language and literature subjects, with the argument—not at all indoctrinating and ideologically neutral—that "they are not Valencian" and that "they do not write in Valencian." It is the mixture of authoritarianism and hatred for culture and public schools that have always constituted the hallmarks of the extreme right. Now, however, turned into law, it aims to turn the public school into a scene of conflicts and fears that give a new dimension to the sad expression “culture war,” in which academic freedom, and with it constitutional freedoms, are revoked. It is a particularly brazen exhibition of the neo-Francoism of the Spanish right (PP and Vox, let us repeat it) and of the democratic involution it represents.Unions and teaching entities in the Valencian Country have already denounced the desire of Pérez Llorca and his Council to intimidate teachers and to impose a covert parental pin or an ideological police force within public classrooms. This Saturday the 12th, a large demonstration is called in Valencia that will kick off a school year expected to be full of mobilizations. But I return to the beginning: this is not a problem "of the Valencians", but rather it affects us all directly. If this is the sample, it is easy to foresee the direction that the educational policy of a Spanish government controlled by Vox and the PP will take.